Banks and Chocolate: The secret of being an unconquerable nation

[Farnan]

After some discussion about Switzerland, I came up with a theory on how to make a nation unconquerable by foreign foes, without a single man having to hold a rifle. That theory is the theory of Banks and Chocolate.

To begin with the banking part of this theory, the first step in this process is to create large, heavily regulated banks. The regulation of these banks has to do with privacy of foreign clients. By law every single of these banks must be have extreme restrictions on access to information. This is to draw investments from shady figures in foreign nations to invest their money in these banks. Then, you also want to develop in your banks a sense of stability. Each account should be completely insured in case of any economic crisis. This will draw clients from outside the country who want to keep at least a portion of their capital safe from economic crisis in their county. Finally it should be easy to evade taxes on the money put in these banks. Tax evasion by putting money in these banks should be completely encouraged, that is if they're evading taxes from their country. This will get more and more rich people to put money in accounts in these banks. How does this make your country unconquerable? Its simple, if the wealthy members of a country invest a lot of money in your country, they are pressured to make sure that money is not lost forever and since you would freeze their assets if you were invaded they will pressure their government to not take hostile actions against your nation. And we all know that the wealthy members of a society wield great influence.

The second part is chocolates. You need to gear your nation towards producing high quality items that are ubiquitous to everyday living. Items that become so common that they're taken for granted. That way if your nation is ever invaded, the price of those items will increase and the common person will fill the pull on their purse strings and the war will become less popular because of that...

[John Wayne]

An intersting and completely plausable theory.

[Maron]

I completely agree with the bank theory, but the chocolate thing is a little far-fetched.

[Farnan]

That's why I put both together...

[_GunneR_]

Yes you will this is what the Swiss have been doing for long long long time and what others have tried to do but it doesn't work for everyone.

[Gelgoog]

you also have the fact thats its located in an area that is difficult for even modern armies to work, making supply lines very open to ambush and easily defendable. if you look at hitler, he wanted and planned to invade, but the difficulty and number of troops needed made it really not worth it.

[Kscott]

I think the fact that the Swiss have laways remained neutral is why they have been succesful. A neutral state is alwasy a good thing to have in a war. People it history have always reconized this.

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

An intersting theory but the chocolate part would be hard to put in place, but the chocolate part would be hard; wouldn't the country have to nationalize or create alot of tax breaks for buisnesses that export comodites?

[Marcus Scaurus]

I think the fact that the Swiss have laways remained neutral is why they have been succesful. A neutral state is alwasy a good thing to have in a war. People it history have always reconized this.

Neutrality doesn't make you harder to conquer. My country Holland was neutral in WWI and in the first months of WWII until Hitler invaded it, mainly because Holland was strategically of importance for the Germans, Switzerland not (or less). If Switzerland was a strategical importance, Hitler would've invaded it without hesitation.

[_GunneR_]

Yeah fair point Baron i guess strategic importance plays a factor in it definately. Probably more so than being neutral.

[RusskiSoldat]

The fact that every man in Switzerland has the training and weapons to rise up as a partisan in case of invasion is also a deterrent.

[Lord Tomyris]

So I guess Oceania's chocolate ration was not all together a good thing...

[MoROmeTe]

There is a theory in the novel Dune about "decisive logs" and about how he who holds sway over an important resource and/or its distribution has the power to stay out of conflict an even dictate terms. The Swiss have such a log under control: the banking log...

[Spiff]

I thought this would make an interesting addition to the Musaeum.. a little unconventional as far as theories go but worth indexing because of that.